Sometimes my dreams are so realistic. I want to remember and learn from them. Usually though, the dreams slip away in the daylight, evaporated by the sun. I wondered what my Cherokee ancestors thought about dreams, so I did a little research.
For the Cherokee, the physical world was not separate from the spiritual world. Together they make up the fabric of everyday life. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when the United States was expanding with the Anglo European policy of “Manifest Destiny,” (basically, all land was for white people to populate) the Indian concept of physical and spiritual as one, was almost impossible for any white person to grasp. The thought of being part of the land, and not owning it, sounded crazy to them.
For Native Americans, dreams and visions were a natural way access knowledge and nourish a relationship with the world. Many tribes believe that it is not their minds or bodies that dream, but rather their soul dreams and undergoes the entire experience. The soul can communicate with, and travel to, other realms during sleep and even while they’re awake. Dreams opened new worlds, far beyond normal comprehension of reality.
Dreams were considered sacred and were often interpreted by the tribe’s medicine man, who would tell the dreamer what ceremonies he should perform, the way to live his life, and the responsibility within the tribe that the spirits had given to him. Others might give parents a name for their child, tell the tribe when and where to hunt, when to go to war or when to seek peace.
Some tribes believed they could protect their children from bad dreams by hanging a dream catcher over the cradle or bed. A dream catcher is a hoop on which is woven a web or net leaving a small hole in the center. Bad dreams would get caught in the web, allowing good dreams to go through the center.
It is hard for those of us living in the 21st century to fully understand the devotion that the First Nations people had for dreams. They lived, loved, laughed, cried and died just like us. The reverence they had for the sacred messages that dreams brought seems foreign to us, but they were just part of their world. A world where they could live in harmony as part of our glorious universe, believing in the spiritual , no matter what dreams may come.
For the Cherokee, the physical world was not separate from the spiritual world. Together they make up the fabric of everyday life. In the 18th and 19th centuries, when the United States was expanding with the Anglo European policy of “Manifest Destiny,” (basically, all land was for white people to populate) the Indian concept of physical and spiritual as one, was almost impossible for any white person to grasp. The thought of being part of the land, and not owning it, sounded crazy to them.
For Native Americans, dreams and visions were a natural way access knowledge and nourish a relationship with the world. Many tribes believe that it is not their minds or bodies that dream, but rather their soul dreams and undergoes the entire experience. The soul can communicate with, and travel to, other realms during sleep and even while they’re awake. Dreams opened new worlds, far beyond normal comprehension of reality.
Dreams were considered sacred and were often interpreted by the tribe’s medicine man, who would tell the dreamer what ceremonies he should perform, the way to live his life, and the responsibility within the tribe that the spirits had given to him. Others might give parents a name for their child, tell the tribe when and where to hunt, when to go to war or when to seek peace.
Some tribes believed they could protect their children from bad dreams by hanging a dream catcher over the cradle or bed. A dream catcher is a hoop on which is woven a web or net leaving a small hole in the center. Bad dreams would get caught in the web, allowing good dreams to go through the center.
It is hard for those of us living in the 21st century to fully understand the devotion that the First Nations people had for dreams. They lived, loved, laughed, cried and died just like us. The reverence they had for the sacred messages that dreams brought seems foreign to us, but they were just part of their world. A world where they could live in harmony as part of our glorious universe, believing in the spiritual , no matter what dreams may come.
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Lonnie McKelvey is a freelance writer from Fort Payne, Alabama, and is a regular contributor to Grandparents Day Magazine. |
